


cherry blossom

by charliewalkertexasranger



Category: Scream (Movies)
Genre: Author Is Sleep Deprived, Canon Gay Character, Gay, M/M, Male Slash, Movie: Scream 4 (2011), One Shot, Resolved Sexual Tension, Sharing a Bed, Underage Sex, charlie is like ranch dressing he goes good with everything, duh - Freeform, erik knudsen hmu if u got any druthers, i think, lets pretend charlie has a conscience and doesnt just think about boobies and death all the time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-09
Updated: 2018-05-09
Packaged: 2019-05-04 09:47:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14590335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charliewalkertexasranger/pseuds/charliewalkertexasranger
Summary: And Robbie, for all his thinking, doesn't even knowhowto think anymore, let alone what.





	cherry blossom

**Author's Note:**

> **UPDATE 2/11/19:** I wrote this in like two or three hours during a sleepless night. I refuse to read it. If it's good, fine, but I highly doubt that. You've been warned.

It calms Robbie down, knowing that Charlie's alive.

It's why Robbie watches him breathing, the rise and fall of his chest in the silence of the night. It's a full moon, and the pale light is filtering through the curtains and onto Robbie's bed, where they both lie, half-covered and fully naked beneath the white silk sheet strewn lazily across their thighs. It's a bit strange, Robbie thinks, that his mother not only allows but encourages them to share a bed when Charlie's over, but it's sort of a hallmark of a platonic male friendship, the sleepovers, and it's only because of sheer ignorance on the part of Robbie's mother and stepfather that he and Charlie ended up together where they are.

Sheer ignorance of what they've just done.

That always drives Robbie's anxiety up, thinking about what people would think if it became apparent what they shared. He imagines a sign strapped across him and Charlie in public, or some sort of psychic wisdom, that people at school would take one look at them and know, and he can't even begin to take the thoughts that circle in his head. It's never really struck him to be nervous that his brain is the highest organ in his body, if that last layer of skin on his scalp isn't counted, but when it strengthens his ability to compare those thoughts he imagines going through people's heads to _vultures_ , it does.

When he's alone, and he thinks about the things people would believe and say if they knew about this, he imagines Charlie breathing, just to cool down again, like Charlie always manages to, no matter what happens. But right now, Robbie doesn't have to imagine. Charlie's skinny, bare pecs are heaving, up, down, relaxed, inches in front of him. He even gets to trace his fingertip around Charlie's sternum, if the whole watching him breathe didn't happen to be enough. He can see that Charlie's clearly breathing and feel that he's very warm, and that is enough to make him feel alright again, when he has every reason not to be.

There's been a stiff silence, ever since they finished what they just did. Robbie's a little sore from being penetrated like that, and he can still feel the soft pulsating in his groin; Charlie goes rough with him, sometimes, and it usually results in exactly those two things. Robbie considers it the aftermath, the cost of what he's done, though referring to it as a _cost_ kind of erases the pleasure to it that continues to hum through his veins. Usually, they talk afterward. It just takes a while.

Charlie doesn't really want to be here. Robbie's sure of it. Straight guys can have gay sex without ever changing what they are inside. They only betray it. It doesn't morph the reality into anything different. Robbie thinks he does it as a mark of friendship, or out of some especially sad kind of desperation or sympathy. Charlie's got a girl he's chasing, and even though he and Robbie are having sex, now, nothing's really different when they aren't in private. He acts like he's always acted. If Robbie didn't personally experience what's happened to him, or through some great circumstance of magic or media-style convenient amnesia forgot it all, he wouldn't have been able to see any change, not even a vague, subtle hint.

Robbie longs to bring her up. When they talk, it's not often about her, not overwhelmingly, at least, when there's so many other things to talk about, so many other things the two can connect over. She comes up, on occasion, when they talk about school or their friends or the latest happenings, or when Charlie wants advice on pursuing her. But he kind of wants to hear his opinion on her again. It makes him happy, to know that Charlie's so enamored with someone and growing closer every day to being her boyfriend. To being happy. For four years Robbie's had to hear him complain about her, and for the three months since the party where his feelings for Charlie finally slipped out while they were drunk, he's had to hear Charlie complain even more, and it relieves Robbie that he could finally have one less thing to complain about in a world of tests and Trevor Sheldon and bad acting in horror reboots.

It makes Robbie happy, but it doesn't cure the inherent sadness in losing him to someone else. Yet he's happy enough. Charlie and slasher films, mostly Charlie, are his point to being alive. And when you really love someone, he knows you're supposed to let them go do whatever they need, within reason, and sometimes not within reason, to meet their potential. Just as he has a point to being alive, that is the point of love existing, if he wants to get spiritual about it and imply that anything in life has a point. The point of love is to better someone else at the cost of yourself. Without that, love is not love. And love can be such a preciously self-indulgent thing, but it can also turn into the worst pain of all, and Robbie identifies more with the latter than with the former.

When Robbie finally brings her up, it's because he's sick of contemplating the meaning of what he feels about Charlie. He wants to just feel it all, like people think he does, without trying to find a hidden meaning. He knows he comes off like the kind of guy who feels directly, never overanalyzing, but he's not, at all. He's a worrier. He just doesn't let anyone but Charlie know. That's his privilege for being a best friend. He and no one else gets to know just how broken Robbie is.

"We didn't talk about it today, unlike every day," Robbie says, with the slight branding of self-deprecating wit characteristic of him. He's not a webcaster because he's dull and boring. Though he might admit he _can_ be a bit boring, if his web traffic gets to have a say in it. "How's Kirby?"

There's a hitch in the conversation, so new to life, that takes the form of a tired little pause. A birth defect made evident, Robbie supposes. The wrong thing at the wrong time.

"It's kind of weird that you'd talk to me about her after we just... you know," Charlie says, blank of expression, as he so often is. He blinks, hollow, staring off at the ceiling. Under the white glow of the midnight moonlight, his skin, already pale by day, looks ivory, and Robbie is sure that running his fingers down Charlie's warm cheek is all that he needs. But he doesn't want to take away from his point that Kirby is more important than he is right before he even tries to make it, and the cold edge of loneliness sinks into him with sharp, jagged claws, right in his gut.

This was how he used to feel before he and Charlie first kissed, how he used to feel before that night three months back when they were both drunk on shitty whiskey that was still hot and bitter on their breath and they touched each other in the bathroom at that party. Robbie used to feel very, very lonely, even when Charlie was around, because it was as though Robbie could never be truly open with his best friend, and, in a way, or not, really, because it was more in what it appeared wholly on the surface, he couldn't be. When so many things that he needed to say were left unsaid, it was like nothing had ever been said between them at all. It was like Charlie was a stranger when he most certainly wasn't, at least according to the way Robbie felt for him. It was a very scary and painful existence, one Robbie was glad he could put to an end, even if it really was Charlie who had put a hand on his dick first and done that himself.

Robbie's okay with feeling that loneliness for the rest of his life if it means Charlie can find a committed relationship with the girl of his dreams. He tells himself in that small moment of time as he lies there in hesitation, wanting to touch, unable, that he needs to get used to it. He knows Charlie is too sweet, too obsessive, and too devoted to cheat once Kirby is his, and when Kirby is a goal he's working towards with a dedication he's only ever had for horror movies and Cinema Club, Kirby will be his girlfriend very, very soon, effectively putting an end to his relationship with Robbie, or, at least, changing it dramatically, when it is already so new; Robbie doesn't think anything in the world can come between them, not completely. They'll always be friends. But once Kirby kisses Charlie for the first time, no matter where it happens, no matter how, and no matter when, what there is now will be over, and Robbie will not be able to touch Charlie like this again. He takes his hand off Charlie's chest, to get a feel for the actual lack of sensation, not just the willpower necessary mentally.

Charlie is a cherry blossom. Beautiful, flawless, so perfect that he cannot be ignored, but gone so soon, a tiny blip in a long expanse of time. The way he complements Robbie perfectly, matching in all the right places and different enough to be distinct and separate, the quiet to Robbie's loud, is his petals, his allure, and his lack of dependability almost contributes to just how much he means, what he is; Robbie must savor him now, while he can.

Cherry blossom.

"No, I get it, Charlie," Robbie finally says, and when he opens his mouth he's scared that it's so dry that he'll never talk again. "We're not a thing. You'll sleep with me, and you're okay with doing that, but you're not like... romantically attracted to me. And that's fine. I want you to be happy. With Kirby."

There's a pause, and Robbie is scared he's said the wrong thing, though he isn't quite sure what it was, and he isn't sure how bad it'll be, the fallout. The pause becomes a very long silence before Charlie peers over at him, huge blue eyes centerpiece to a very quizzical expression, lips parted, brow furrowed, and for that whole silence Robbie fears the worst out of him, though he's not really in possession of the slightest clue what that might be out of someone who never raises his voice, never ditches his calm, cool, and collected demeanor.

"Who says we're not a thing?"

"Kirby," Robbie says softly, before he really thinks about it. "You."

Charlie looks back at the ceiling. Robbie watches the way he breathes again, like he did before they started talking. It really does calm him down.

Charlie's so hollow. It suits him, though. He wouldn't be nearly as handsome if he was constantly feeling something in particular; his features, long and thin but sweet, not traditionally attractive but something Robbie finds it anyway, were made to be emotionless. However, despite that, Robbie can't quite shake the shine of his smile when it does appear, and when he's with Kirby, it certainly does.

"I guess," Charlie says, the submissive one to the end, always bowing. "I'm not trying to lead you on—"

"I'm aware and I'm okay with it. I'm gay. You're not. This is something you do _for_ me, and in spite of how much you hate it."

"I wasn't... I wasn't done."

There's a strength in it that Robbie can't quite place—since when has Charlie had this kind of confidence in love, because not even with Kirby can he actually find the ability to make the first move, or dominate things—but he appreciates it, and though he knows it's still going to end the way it will, the way he's already accepted it will end, because there is no other way for things to go, he is proud that Charlie's become this way, because it might give him half a chance. Not that he needs half a chance. Kirby will like him, someday. Robbie's as sure of that as he is of his own name.

"Sorry," Robbie whispers.

He shuts his mouth and waits. It's his turn to shut up. It's Charlie's turn to never stop talking.

For all the talking they do, Robbie feels he dominates it, and he wishes quiet Charlie, confident beyond his own sapling cockiness in nothing but Cinema Club meetings, would speak a bit more, for his own sake. It's not like Robbie hates the sound of his voice, either.

"I've thought about it," Charlie says. "I _like_ doing this. It feels good, right?"

"Yeah," Robbie admits sheepishly. "But you can't just like it because it pleases me. That isn't healthy, dude."

"I... I don't. I like it too."

He lowers his voice into a faint whisper, like someone's able to hear them and he knows it. They've taken the stance of never being _too_ cautious with going into detail about their sexual activity. But Robbie's not sure that's all what this is about. Maybe Charlie's just shy. Well, he knows Charlie's a shy little motherfucker, best friends, and all, but about what's he's about to say. Does it make him as nervous as Robbie gets?

"I mean, yeah, it feels good, and, at first, that's why I did it. But then I realized something... I realized that I wouldn't be able to do this all the time if it were all just for pleasure. I'd feel guilty. Like I'm using you."

Robbie looks at him, uncertain that he's implying what he's implying. Robbie figures it must be his own love-drugged mind jumping to conclusions. And, by jumping, he means hopscotch. He means what he and Charlie do with the fast forward on the remote when there's not a death one hour into an ninety-minute horror movie. That happened, once.

Charlie glances over to Robbie and studies his bare front, his slim chest, the little line of fuzz running from his navel to down beneath the sheet, or, at least, Robbie thinks that's what Charlie's eyes are flicking to, on a guess based on where they go over him and how he feels. What Robbie thought was a glance stays there, though. Then Charlie breathes a little, as if he's overwhelmed, and Robbie figures he might just be.

"It's you, man!" he whimpers, spilling it like it's easier on him just to say it all at once, fast. His eyes are clamped shut, but Robbie can tell he's on the brink of tears, choking, probably hoping for air. "I mean, look at yourself, dude. I thought _I_ was oblivious. I _am_ attracted to you like that. I want to be your boyfriend and take you out on dates to somewhere way nicer than we go as friends just because you deserve it! I want to, like, cuddle you on the couch while we watch as many _Stab_ movies as we can fit into one night because I know they're your favorites! I want to sit around and play with your hair because it smells good and it's soft and it gets really curly when you haven't had a haircut in a while, and I think you're cute as hell, okay?!"

Charlie, normally so in control of himself and how he feels, is now officially in tears; Robbie can see the shimmer of them on his cheeks.

And Robbie, for all his thinking, doesn't even know _how_ to think anymore, let alone what.


End file.
